Associate dean role launches new era for college entrepreneurship and industry partnership

Naming its first-ever associate dean for corporate engagement and entrepreneurship, the College of Engineering has taken a bold first step in igniting an enhanced corporate engagement and entrepreneurial culture designed for impact.

The Thomas and Suzanne Werner Chair Professor in nuclear engineering and engineering physics, co-founder of Realta Fusion, former college associate dean for research innovation, and director of the Grainger Institute for Engineering, Oliver Schmitz assumes the role of associate dean for corporate engagement and entrepreneurship, beginning today (Oct. 1, 2025).

Schmitz has forged partnerships that go beyond traditional research approaches—for instance, through the statewide network of the Clean Energy Community Initiative, and by supporting the formation of the campuswide Wisconsin CHIPS Center. He also formed the college’s Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) and the Technology Entrepreneurship Office (TEO). He coupled both offices with the Grainger Institute for Engineering, which he also oversees, to link ideation and innovation to application of our excellence in the corporate and entrepreneurial space. Schmitz will bring his creativity, deep technology expertise and highly collaborative, collegial style and a strong Wisconsin-wide network to this new role.

In his new role, Schmitz will further focus these activities and boost our corporate engagement and entrepreneurship efforts. On the corporate engagement side, this will happen through the college’s new named industry hub concept, with a goal to quickly increase the number of hubs and populate the seventh floor of our new Phillip A. Levy Engineering Center with our signature industry partners. This will ignite a new era of industry partnerships and industry-driven research for our college. In entrepreneurial endeavors, we will strategically build our training capacity through the TEO; UW-Madison’s NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program will be a second-to-none enterprise within the NSF Great Lakes Region I-Corps Hub. Beyond I-Corps, Schmitz also plans to launch a new entrepreneurial training program for faculty that will be accessible and attractive to academia across the Midwest.

“This is a bold action plan and I am confident that in Oliver we have someone who can lead this space alongside all of you,” says Grainger Dean of the College of Engineering Devesh Ranjan. “I am looking very forward to the big things our college can do to increase faculty, staff and student startups, and to expand our tech transfer to industry.”

Contact Schmitz (oschmitz@wisc.edu) to learn more about these and other upcoming activities and to get involved in growing our college’s impact on our communities and beyond.